Ethnopolitical Conflict in Rwanda

The Rwandan Genocide was the systematic murder of members of Rwanda's Tutsi ethnic minority and moderate Hutu sympathizers in 1994. The diplomatic efforts to end the conflict were initially seen as successful but the rising tensions among the population made it difficult to come to a conflict ending agreement. Over the course of about 100 days, from April 6 to mid-July, 1994 at least 500,000 Tutsis, and thousands of Hutus, were the victims of this atrocity. [1] To the extent that governments and nations elsewhere failed to prevent and halt the Rwandan killing campaign, they all share in the shame of the crime. The United Nations staff as well as the three foreign governments principally involved in Rwanda bear added responsibility: the U.N. staff for having failed to provide adequate information and guidance to members of the Security Council; Belgium, for having withdrawn its troops precipitately and for having championed total withdrawal of the U.N. force; the U.S. for having put saving money ahead of saving lives and for slowing the sending of a relief force; and France, for having continued its support of a government engaged in genocide.[2] The United Nations neglect of the Rwandan Genocide, under comprehensive media coverage, drew severe criticism. France, Belgium, and the United States in particular, received negative attention for their complacency towards the extreme Hutu regime's oppressions. Canada, Ghana, and the Netherlands, did continue to provide a force on the ground, under the command of Roméo Dallaire of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), but this mission had little actual power without support from the UN Security Council.[3] Dallaire had 450 ill-equipped troops from developing countries and consistent abandonment. Despite specific demands from UNAMIR's commanders in Rwanda, before and throughout the genocide, its requests for authorization to intervene were refused, and its capacity was even reduced.[4] “All that is needed for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”- Edmund Burke[5] The Rwandan genocide represents a failure not only of the United Nations but also of powerful states to respond to the genocide. In the United States, the Clinton Administration refused to label what was happening in Rwanda genocide out of concern that doing so would create political pressure for the government to respond to a crisis in which the United States had no clear interest. After the genocide ended when Tutsi rebels recaptured Rwandan territory and drove out the Hutu extremists, President Clinton belatedly called what happened “genocide” and, during a brief visit to Rwanda in which he never left the Rwandan airport, made a speech in which he apologized for the failure of the United States and the international community to take stronger preventive measures.[6] Clinton also admitted that, “The people who brought him the information and Congress were still affected by the recent events in Somalia. By the time he personally had gotten more involved and focused more attention it was too late. If the United States had invested just 10,000 troops they could have saved hundreds of thousands of people.”[7] Clinton also stated, “I will always regret not intervening in Rwanda.”[8] Anthony Lake the U.S. secretary of Defense to the Clinton Administration stated, “The issue to intervene in Rwanda just never arose and it should have.”[9] “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere . . . Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” -Martin Luther King Jr.[10] Ethnocentrism is in essence a psychological term, although it is also used generally in the study of society and politics. It can be related to nationalism and racism, but its focus is strictly on the individual’s relationship with an ethnic group rather with a nation or a race. Ethnocentrism gives a general and perhaps even...

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Ethnic Conflict in Rwanda
The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is, by all accounts, the worst war related disaster since the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki in World War II. In Rwanda, 800,000 people died in less than one hundred days. As the well wishers of Europe and the United States turned a blind eye to what was happening in Rwanda, thousands of machete-wielding youths turned Rwanda into a mass grave. Although, the United Nations sent its peacekeepers they were few, severely underfunded, and with a mandate limited only to self defense and protection of foreign interests. In short, the peacekeepers could only watch helplessly as the Rwandese butchered each other. By considering Gourevitch’s arguments, this essay analyzes the reasons why the Europe and the United States turned a blind eye to the genocide in Rwanda. It will also outline the strengths and weaknesses of those arguments, and finally put forward arguments that UN officials should have made in order to convince Europe and the United States to intervene in Rwanda.
GOUREVITCH’S ARGUMENTS
The economic underdevelopment of Rwanda made the well-wishers of Europe and the United States doubt the Hutu government’s capacity to carry out systematic attacks aimed at exterminating the Tutsi’s. To them Rwanda was a third world country and, as...

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Social and Political Impact in the 100 Days of Genocide
by Ernest Rugwizangoga
It would be confusing, unfair, and overly presumptuous for anyone to say that he or she clearly understands the Rwandan genocide that began in April of 1994. I have chosen the title wanting to focus on social aspects of the Rwandan genocide but I find it hard writing about it without mentioning political aspects. From my experiences and perspective they are strongly connected.
As a child, I saw myself first as a Rwandan because I shared language, culture, and even religion with my neighbors. In Rwanda, everybody speaks the same language called Kinyarwanda. The majority of Rwandans, where I lived in central Rwanda, were Christians. We all liked and ate the same kinds of food. At least 95 percent of my village was farmers. I would never know the difference between Hutu and Tutsi if I did not learn it from school, family and peers.
School was the first place that taught me the concept of Tutsi and Hutu. I attended a Catholic school but the national Rwandan Board of Education set the curriculum. During the first week of the school year, there was what I call the census of Hutus and Tutsis. They asked Hutus to go on one side of the room and Tutsis on the other side. The majority of students was confused and had to ask their parents. That was our assignment one day before the census.
My parents told me that I was a Tutsi. I asked them why? They explained to...

...occupation of Rwanda, the Tutsis and Hutus lived different lifestyles. Tutsis and Hutus were separate ethnic groups that lived peacefully with no discrimination or clashes between the groups. After World War 1, Belgium overtook Rwanda as a colony and established the Tutsis as the natural born leaders of the nation. The once peaceful lifestyle that existed in Rwanda was no more, as all Tutsis were given Identity cards to distinguish them from the Hutu subclass. During this period racial tensions started as the Hutus were troubled.
The name “Tutsi” and “Hutu” were first given when Rwanda was first settled. They were placed in their group according to the amount of cattle they had, making the “Tutsi”, people who owned the most cattle and the “Hutus”, anyone else. When the Europeans came, the two groups got more of a radical name by “Tutsis” being described as more European because of their appearance: meaning they had lighter skin and were taller than the Hutu group . The beginning of the genocide is usually traced to April 6, 1994 when a plane crashed with Rwanda’s president, Juvenal Habyarimanya on board. The plane crash was caused by a “surface-to-air missile” which led to no survivors on the plane. Ever since 1973, President Habyarimanya, who was a Hutu, had run a government in Rwanda which didn’t allow any Tutsis from joining. However, this changed on August 3, 1993 when the president of...

...I decided to surf the internet in search of inspiration, and I found it on the mediate.com website. Robert Benjamin's article "Hotel Rwanda and the Guerrilla Negotiator" definitely caught my eye particularly since I had checked the DVD out from the library last Friday but hadn't yet watched it. Benjamin's article piqued my interest enough to do some additional research on Rwanda, and passion was born.
While a colony of Belgium, Rwanda was separated into two tribal groups which many say was based on physical characteristics such as the wideness of the nose: the common Tutsi (majority), and the upper-class Hutu (minority). For many years, the Tutsis were powerful and mistreated the Hutus. In 1962, Rwanda gained its independence from Belgium, the power shifted to the Hutus, many of whom wanted to exact their revenge on the enemy Tutsis.
In 1993, Canadian General Romeo Dallaire was put in charge of the United Nations Mission to Rwanda to facilitate implementation of the Arusha peace accords after they were signed by the Hutus and the Tutsis. That mission was derailed when the Hutu president's plane was shot down by Tutsi rebels. The president's assassination was the precipitating event of what would become known as the genocide in Rwanda.
"When people ask me, good listeners,
why do I hate all the Tutsi, I say:...

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Taking on Responsibility
In 1994 the Hutu ethnic group targeted the Tutsis ethnicity of Rwanda, this was one of the worst massacres to occur in recent history and is now deemed to be a genocide of the Tutsis. During this genocide, a citizen of Rwanda, Paul Rusesbagina assumed responsibility for many Tutsis refugees that were fleeing for their safety. Paul was a Hutu man that was the General Manager of a luxury hotel known as the Hotel Des Milles Collines in Kigali, Rwanda. Throughout the film the hotel becomes a refugee camp for Tutsis. During the film Paul's responsibility level increases significantly due to three main factors: the influence of his wife Tatiana, the number of refugees that sought safety at the hotel, and the actions or non-action of the United Nations (UN).
Paul's wife Tatiana was a Tutsi which meant her life was in danger along with their two children’s. Tatiana believed Paul to be an upstanding and honest man who could make a difference for those in danger Tatiana wanted Paul to take action to help their neighbours and friends throughout the genocide, "do something Paul!" (Hotel Rwanda) Tatiana pleaded this as they saw their neighbour being brutally attacked by the Hutu Militia. Paul at this point sadly says that he cannot do anything, as Victor their neighbour is not family, and family is what he has to protect right now.
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Rwandan Genocide
"Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation." (Genocide)
Introduction
"In 1994 Rwanda experienced the worst genocide in modern times. The Rwandan Genocide was a genocidal mass slaughter of the Tutsis by the Hutus that took place in 1994 in the East African state of Rwanda. It is considered the most organized genocide of the 20th century. Over the course of approximately 100 days (from the assassination of Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on April 6 through mid-July) over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate. Estimates of the death toll have ranged from 500,000–1,000,000, or as much as 20% of the country's total population. It was the culmination of longstanding ethnic competition and tensions between the minority Tutsi, who had controlled power for centuries, and the majority Hutu peoples, who had come to power in the rebellion of 1959–62." ("Rwandan Genocide")
History between the Hutu and Tutsi people
"In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a rebel group composed mostly of Tutsi refugees, invaded northern Rwanda from Uganda in an attempt to defeat the Hutu-led government. They began the Rwandan Civil War, fought between the Hutu regime, with support from Francophone Africa and France, and the Rwandan Patriotic Front, with support from Uganda. This exacerbated ethnic tensions in the...

...Ghosts of Rwanda
The film showed very disturbing footage of piles and piles of dead bodies in Rwanda along with footage of President Clinton stating that he would not put American lives in danger if the United States was not directly affected by the chain of events taking place. What’s worse, the lack of action and intervention from the international community or the active role taken by the Rwandan government in the genocide? One could argue that both actions are equally despicable as the international community with the power to prevent the genocide did not and the Rwandan government not only failed to protect its people but also aided in the killings. The most moving part of the film for me unquestionably was when the commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda, Gen. Romeo Dallaire says he remains haunted by his inability to stop the killing. "Rwanda will never leave me: it's in the pores of my body. …We saw lots of them dying, and lots of those eyes still haunt me -- angry eyes, innocent eyes. They're looking at me with my blue beret, and they're saying, `What in the hell happened? Why am I dying here?"
The genocide in Rwanda appears to have followed a course according to Jentleson’s purposive theory which can only be fully understood in a historical context. The tension between the two ethnic groups was used by the Belgians to keep control until Rwanda was given its...

...﻿Genocide in Rwanda (Culminating Task)
Lynch Alcala
a.) Summary
Rwanda is separated into two major ethnic groups, the Huts and the Tutsis. Majority of Rwandans are Hutus who make up about 80 per cent of the population, and only about 15 per cent are Tutsis. These two ethnic groups shared the same language and culture, but there had been conflicts between the two groups that occurred during the colonial period. Rwanda was colonized by Belgians after the first World War. There had been racism going on during the colonial period, the Tutsis, who were seen to have more European characteristics, were considered to be superior to the Hutus. Since then, conflicts and animosity between the two groups started to occur. When the Rwandans finally got their independence from Belgium, the Hutus took all the power and controlled the new government. After that, small massacres keeps happening in Rwanda and almost all the victims were Tutsis. President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, signed “Arusha Accords” that let the Tutsis participate in the government and weakened the Hutus’ power. The president died on April 6, 1994 when his plane got shot down. No one ever knew who were responsible for this assassination, but the Tutsis were blamed and the animosity between the two groups sparked even bigger. Hutus started killing thousands and thousands of Tutsis, these massive killing were clearly turning out...